Microsoft is Ending Their Support of Microsoft Server 2003

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Microsoft is Ending Their Support of Microsoft Server 2003

An official alert was put out by the US Department of Homeland Security that could affect up to 12 million physical servers all across the world. This alert has spoken of the negative consequences to businesses if they don’t upgrade their Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating systems on July 14, 2015 or sooner.

After this date, the product won’t receive security patches anymore which help protect computers from spyware, harmful viruses and other malicious software. Any assisted technical support from Microsoft and content and software updates will also no longer be available.

Further Explanation

Typically, mainstream support is a five-year period where Microsoft will offer free fixes and patches, which includes but is not limited to security updates for its products. After this phase of mainstream support, Microsoft will keep offering a five year period of extended support, meaning users will get free security fixes, but other kinds of updates cost and need specific licensing deals.

End of support means that for the specific products, there will be no more patches or fixes, whether free or paid, non-security or security available.

Impact

The alert also told about the many dangers of continuing to use Windows Server 2003 unsupported which include the loss of integrity, confidentiality, plus the availability of system resources, data and business assets.

Users could also run into problems with hardware and software compatibility, seeing as new hardware devices and software applications might not be built to run on Windows Server 2003. While running this server, organizations which are governed by regulatory obligations could find that they can’t satisfy compliance requirements anymore.

Solution

Any computers which are running the Windows Microsoft Server 2003 operating system will still work after the support has ended. Using any unsupported software, however, could raise the chance of getting viruses or other security threats.

Users will have the choice of upgrading to an operating system which is currently being supported or another cloud-based service. NSA can help you with the migration in switching over from Windows Server 2003 to an operating system that is currently supported or a software as a service (SaaS)/ infrastructure as a service (IaaS) services and products.

Now is the Time to Act

Since on average it takes a Windows server more than two hundred days to migrate, it is time now to act and begin planning for migration, warned officials from Microsoft. Everything changes in Windows Server 2012 with the architectural changes in 32 bit to 64 bit technology.

There are several small businesses which are still running Windows Server 2003, and officials from Microsoft are hoping to convince them to switch over to Windows Server 2012 R2 or Azure. Let us know if we can help you – contact us today.